Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (14 page)

William (also known as TJ but I hate initials for names) arrives precisely at seven, running into Uncle Joe’s room like it’s to beat the band. I dressed up “pretty” for what that’s worth. William doesn’t even notice, so absorbed he is in showing Uncle Joe he’s on time. He’s rewarded with money I’m not supposed to see, but William drops one of the bills on the floor and Uncle Joe rolls his eyes at him. I pretend not to notice but I have to choke down a giggle; their expressions of I’m-a-klutz-He’s-a-klutz are so telling.

Uncle Joe offers Duesy to William to drive as if he now owns it. William seems pleased. They discuss the route downtown and what time to have me home. William heads out the door and I follow behind him like an obedient dog that remains unacknowledged until he opens the door for me. Like a treat he gives me his easy grin and an easy compliment and I surprise myself by feeling grateful. I slide into the passenger side like a good girl.

That’s the good part. The rest of the evening goes downhill from there. The country road is long and bumpy, the stories of who-owns-what is boring and braggy, the dance hall called “Bottom’s Up” is an everybody-knows-everybody joint, except me who they don’t want to know but take a lot more time wanting me to know them. Now I know that sounds negative and maybe that’s why I’d stayed single up to this point but I’m put off by that I’ll-take-care-of-you-kid wink, especially when he doesn’t.

There’s too much beer and not enough food, too little talk and too much kissing. I say William is moving too fast; he tells me I’m moving too slow. I tell him to take the fast-track back home then, I’ve had enough. I slam hard the car door in Uncle Joe’s driveway, hoping to make a point, until I realize he’s driving away in my car, gravel spitting back at me. I stomp my foot in vexation.

Thankfully, Uncle Joe’s light is out and I tiptoe up to my room. I’m too agitated to sleep with the roaring in my ears from too-loud music, too-little dancing (“Teeee Jay only dances when his pants are on fire,” a lady-friend had called across the table, her drawn-out pronunciation of “fire” sounding like it had three i’s in the word). TJ – I mean, William – singing in my ear along with
You made me love you
while we shuffled across the floor didn’t come close to “dancing our shoe leather off” as he’d promised. I can swing dance with the rest of them even if the South did come up with it in the first place, I replied to the boasts. That line at least did catch me a skinny fish by the name of Joey or Boy or something -oey, who swung me across the floor with some fair boogie-woogie footwork. Okay, I’m not good with names but then neither is William; I must’ve called out “William!” a hundred times and he didn’t answer until I elbowed him. It’s like he doesn’t even know his first name. Daft.

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind

The answer is blowing in the wind.

Bob Dylan

Signed,

Go-with-the-flow Jesi

Jesi, please insert your Chapter One here. And do enter more than two lines!

Yours Truly,

Grandmama Bess

Here goes, Grandmama Bess (aka GB!):

Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon

For the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who

That it’s namin’

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin’.

Bob Dylan

Bi-dah, bi-dah, bi-dah, that’s all folks!

GB, do your own thing and don’t worry about mine.

Peace and Love, Jesi.

A
t Cady’s Tea and what followed that summer of 1910 were “mind-blowing” as Jesi would say. I felt I had entered a woman’s world, one where there was an openness amongst these women that intricately wove a connection in and around them that was as delicate as lace; durable and colorful as needlepoint. Each life, each story, brought a different color, another scene to the mosaic. Oh God, how I loved that camaraderie! Each meeting with the Ladies brought me more understanding of what was happening around me, in what I came to know as my community. I was amazed (and at times horrified) at how different other women’s lives were. How different they were and yet somehow the same, all being able to listen attentively, cry easily, or laugh deeply as their intuition saw necessary.

Contrary to criticisms, we all believed in three basic principles: the institution of marriage, protection of children, and a firm belief in God. They simply wanted to be able to stand up for these beliefs and be counted. As Lizzie stated more than once, “Ain’t we people too?” More surprisingly I learned I was not alone in my frustrations as a wife and mother. I had only looked inward before knowing these Ladies, only to find my thoughts sometimes dark and aimless. The Ladies Legion brought light into my mind and a purpose to move outward. Each woman had been brought to the meeting place through calamities of her own, where her rights as a woman had been violated. That’s what brought them here. But what kept them here were each other.

They shared their stories as best they could, beginning at Phyllis’ Tea. I can still recall Phyllis perched on a footstool looking dwarf-like,
resembling one of her lawn ornaments in her fairy-tale garden out front, thus explaining her weathered skin and hands. Animated, straight-forward, lots of exclamation – “Oh my! I’m a midwife but I wanted to be a doctor!” Her hearty laughter bounced both her white-haired bun and un-corseted belly. (While I hated the corset, I believed without one I would fall in a heap looking much like the pile of laundry I’d invariably left behind.) She said she had wanted to become a doctor ever since she’d heard her own heart beat through her uncle’s stethoscope. Her heart proceeded to quicken at such a bold thought and she followed its excited state as far as she was allowed – which wasn’t very far, as you can rightly guess. She was repeatedly shooed out of her uncle’s clinic but wasn’t reported to her father until she stole one of his medical books and asked him to assist her in applying for the one Female Medical College in Pennsylvania. Her uncle and father demanded a meeting, enforced with their own book in hand titled
Sex and Education
by Dr. Edward Clark (quite popular in those days because he wrote that a girl could learn, but not without uninjured health, and could suffer from uterine disease, hysteria, and other diseases.)

“I was told I must marry soon,” Phyllis said, her hand over her heart as if to be reminded that it still beat on. “My father said that next thing he feared he would hear would be me joining that petticoat rebellion of women wanting to vote. He was wiser than I gave him credit for at the time!”

That wasn’t to happen for many years later, she went on to say. Her uncle knew of a widower whose dying wife he had doctored. Phyllis marrying him would kill two birds with one stone: this would ease her uncle’s conscience in the first wife’s death (too much opium prescribed!) and would ease her father’s conscience in public criticisms over his unmarried daughter. Lucky she was, or so they said, to have eight ready-made children and a man willing to marry a bookworm.

“A sweet heart but an old man!” she cackled. Yet she proceeded to have seven more children, mixed blessings that came with a midwife who taught Phyllis how to become one. She began work in
a hospital and again attempted medical school only to be told that the American Medical Association barred women from membership. So she attempted nursing, only to be told that women nurses there were rare to none. They hired primarily men because the hospital board believed it improper for ladies to feed and bathe men. “And in men’s beds!” she added with a snicker. “A lady seeing a man’s nakedness would only add discomfort to an already sick man and could hamper wellness. Now think about that! An art that for centuries was considered a woman’s domain was now considered for men only!”

She paused in thought. “It seems,” she finally said, “that the more education is required for medicine, the less need there is for healing.” She did not exclaim this but looked more deflated and reflective. The room became very quiet.

After a few moments silence, our colored comrade, Lizzie, patted Aimee’s knee and spoke. “Well, now, my testimony is short and sweet. I don’t talk much about my past - it becomes too real, too dark. I’ll just say this: I was born into slavery in Georgia. When my papa found out that our master was selling him to another plantation, he ran off and escaped on the Underground Railroad up here. Mama told me after the war that he had gone to a station up here in the town of Cicero, to the home of Matilda Joslyn Gage. Mama said Mrs. Gage was a brave woman with four children of her own who signed a petition saying she would face a six month prison term and a $2000 fine rather than obey the Fugitive Slave law. This law made criminals of anyone assisting slaves to freedom. I wanted to go there, too, but Mama said Papa was supposed to come back for us ... but I never saw him again.

“My mama and I had nowhere else to go, so we stayed on the plantation long after the war set us free. Free from cleaning for the white folk for free, but only free enough to earn small wages cleaning for the white folk. You see, that was about the only difference, because schooling was not provided for colored women. And without learning you find yourself right back where you started.

“I just want to say, I thank the Lord for Cady taking me in the way she did. She taught me to read and to write, and showed me how
to stand up for myself, or else I’d never know how. That is why I am here today.”

The room became quiet once again.

I looked expectantly to Aimee now, next in line on the sofa to speak. She tugged her blouse sleeve down over her wrist and folded her hand over top of the bruised hand.

“I am thankful to be here,” was all Aimee would say.

Cady diverted our attention to her announcement: We would march in the Fourth of July parade, carrying banners and signs and advertising our July eighteenth convention.

A cold wave of fear hit me with that one.

“Did you say,
march
? My goodness, in
public
?” I cried out. I just couldn’t imagine it. “My husband, you see, he will know then, and my children. Shouldn’t they come first? He forbids me even to attend these teas. But once I’ve started, I can’t stop. It’s like cleaning your stove, isn’t it? Once you get started cleaning, you get dirtier and dirtier, and you wonder why you didn’t leave well enough alone. A stove is black anyway, who would know it’s dirty. Only you do, and that is enough and so you start cleaning and finally you work through the grease and the grime, until your arms feel as if they will fall off with the effort and the time. Finally you stand back and you say, yes, the stove does shine! It will work much more efficiently now. And you feel better for your efforts, and you know deep down you’ve done a good day’s work, the best you know how!” I exclaimed just like Phyllis had done, breathless from saying so much out loud.

Cady said, “Thank you for your testimony, Ruby. I like that metaphor.”

“Is that what that was?” I asked. I was that naïve and they all laughed knowingly.

Cady was so clever in what she said in answer. “Your first priority is to your home and family. There is no creature fiercer than a mother protecting her cubs. If it were not to defend her rights to her home and children, what would give her the reason? Why, the reason that brought our Legion together in the first place was this
very thing! A student of mine was wrongfully separated from her mother and I saw first-hand the child’s withdrawal—”

“You may say who it is, Cady,” Eunice spoke softly. The room once again fell into silence. I finished my cookie, reached for another, and gulped my tea, wanting more of everything.

In contrast to Phyllis, Eunice spoke in a non-emotive tone, except at the end of most sentences when her tone would rise as if she were questioning what she just said. Or perhaps she needed validation for her bitterness and resolve-filled statements – validation we often gave in nods and smiles.